D9.2. Final report on TA provision

This document is Deliverable D9.2 of the Co-UDlabs project, funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101008626. The Deliverable is part of Work Package 9, “Transnational Access Provision,” led by the University of A Coruña (Universidade da Coruña, UDC), which is also the primary author of this document. The purpose of this report is to provide detailed information of the TA Projects developed under the second and third calls of Co-UDlabs’ Transnational Access (TA) programme, and an overview of the full TA programme. The 2nd and the 3rd call were implemented between March 2022 and March 2025. During this period, a total of 18 proposals were selected out of 26 submissions (69.2% acceptance rate). The 1st TA call awarded access to 13 projects across 10 of the 17 Co-UDlabs research facilities, involving 103 users from 19 countries and over 60 institutions, spanning universities, regulatory bodies, industry, and SMEs. Gender balance remained a challenge, with only 24.3% of the user-group members being female. Additionally, 44.7% of all users came from non-academic backgrounds. For the 2nd and 3rd TA calls, access was granted to 18 projects, expanding participation to user groups based in 10 different countries (13 when considering all submissions). This included six new countries that had not hosted user-group leading institutions in the first TA call. In total, usergroup members of accepted proposals were based in 24 different countries (31 considering all submissions), with 50% of accepted proposals including at least one institution from a non-EU country. Furthermore, participation from non-academic institutions remained significant, with 34.4% of accepted user groups involving privatebusinesses, SMEs, regulatory bodies, utilities, or water industry associations. The impact of the Co-UDlabs TA projects extends across several key dimensions of urban drainage research and technological advancements. Many projects focused on challenges related to urbanisation and climate change, while others explored commercial applications for new technologies, instrumentation, and methodologies. The TAprogramme has also fostered academic-commercial collaborations, supporting innovation in underexplored research fields. Additionally, some projects worked toward defining new protocols, standards, and datasets that could aid policymakers, regulators, and urban water utilities in improving decision-making processes. As part of thecommitment to open science and knowledge dissemination, TA user groups have pledged to share their findings through open-access data repositories and peer-reviewed publications. Many are already in the process of coauthoring scientific papers, ensuring that the results contribute to both academic knowledge and practicalapplications. The Deliverable incorporates insights from self-assessment surveys completed by user-group members. These surveys indicate high satisfaction levels regarding both the logistical organisation of the TA programme and the scientific outcomes achieved. To conclude, through the three calls, the Co-UDlabs TA programme has provided access to 31 projects, involving 227 user-group members from 122 institutions in 26 different countries. Gender diversity improved slightly, with female participation rising to 27.8% in the 2nd and 3rd calls. However, the share of participants from non-academic sectors decreased compared to the first call, highlighting the need for further outreach efforts toward industry, utilities, and regulators. With the completion of the 2nd and 3rd calls, Co-UDlabs have successfully expand its impact, facilitating international collaboration and advancing research in urban drainage, being an effective and inclusive platform for scientific exchange and technological innovation. The lessons learned from the Co-UDlabs Transnational Programme will guide future initiatives and projects.